BBC4
Will you be able to get through the ponderous aphorisms without giggling? The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reviewed
Amazon’s much-heralded Tolkien prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power began by answering a question that has…
A very classy thriller indeed: C4's The Undeclared War reviewed
The Undeclared War has many of the traditional signifiers of a classy thriller: the assiduous letter-by-letter captioning of every location;…
For all its absurdity, it delivers the goods: BBC2's Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America reviewed
In the latest episode of Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America, Louis asked a rapper called Broke Baby if ‘it’s important to…
Thoughtful and impeccable: Ken Burns's Hemingway reviewed
Ken Burns made his name in 1990 with The Civil War, the justly celebrated 11-and-a-half-hour documentary series that gave America’s…
Like much jazz, it might have benefited from being less solemn: BBC4's Ronnie's reviewed
Ronnie’s: Ronnie Scott and His World-Famous Jazz Club was like the TV equivalent of an authorised biography: impressively thorough, often…
Riveting documentary about a remarkable man: Harry Birrell Presents Films of Love and War reviewed
First shown on BBC Scotland, Harry Birrell Presents Films of Love and War (BBC4, Wednesday) was the documentary equivalent of…
I agree with Jeremy Deller – the birth of acid house was a revolution that changed Britain
Jeremy Deller’s Everybody in the Place: an Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 (BBC4) began with some footage of kids queuing…
The greatest Beatle? Pete Best
Which of the Beatles would you most like to have been? Not either of the dead ones, presumably. Nor the…
According to BBC4, what was one of the ‘most important inventions in modern music’?
Here’s a tricky quiz question for you. What word completes this sentence from a BBC4 documentary on Friday: ‘The world…
![Jessica Biel as Cora Tannetti. [Photo: BBC / Iron Ocean / Universal Cable Productions LLC]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/TV.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
The Sinner is for hormonal teenage girls’ insatiable appetite for the sordid and sick
Don’t watch The Sinner (originally on Netflix; now on BBC4) because, despite your better judgment, you’ll only get addicted after…
An enjoyably gossipy whisk through half a century of fierce rivalries and bruised egos
At the beginning of Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC4), Kirsty Wark’s voiceover promised…
I had no idea how fascinating rubbish could be: The Secret Life of Landfill reviewed
Not the most beguiling of titles, I admit, but The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (BBC4, Thursday) was…
Exhilaratingly original, C4’s Flowers is much more than just a ‘dark comedy’
On Wednesday, BBC Four made an unexpectedly strong case that the human body is a bit rubbish. Our ill-designed spines,…
A non-sniggering look at the latest developments in the lucrative sex-robot market
This week on Channel 4, we watched a cheery 58-year-old American engineer called James going on a first date. He…
The ties that bound us
Only Neil MacGregor could do it — take us in a single thread from a blackened copper coin, about the…
Playing it safe
BBC1’s latest Sunday-night drama The Last Post, about a British military base in Aden in 1965, feels like a programme…
Isn’t it puke-inducing being lectured about poverty by millionaire comics?
Going Forward (BBC4, Thursdays) is a BBC comedy about the continuing adventures of Kim Wilde, the fat, cynical but lovable…
David Attenborough used to steal the animals he found in the jungle and take them home
Let me start this week with an admittedly hard quiz question: in 1954, how did the sudden illness of Jack…
BBC4’s Bob Geldof on WB Yeats was one of the best literary documentaries I’ve seen
In recent years there’s been a fashion for arts documentaries presented by celebs rather than boring old experts — presumably…
How does anyone keep up with all the good stuff out there on TV?
‘We have a problem. Yes. At the wind farm.’ Any conspiracy thriller with lines like that has definitely got my…
Scandi noir reduces you to an exquisitely suicidal state
Some things I have learned about Iceland after watching six episodes of Trapped (BBC4, Saturdays). 1. They seem to feel…
Victorian music-hall comedy wasn’t funny. Why pretend it was?
Let’s start this week with a joke: ‘You know Mrs Kelly? Do you know Mrs Kelly? Her husband’s that little…
Was BBC1’s Rooney show more scripted reality than documentary?
Close to the Edge (BBC4, Tuesday) feels very much like an idea conceived during a particularly good night in the…
James Delingpole discovers the fons et origo of indie music
I really hadn’t meant to write a postscript to last week’s column on my dark Supertramp past. But then along…
What’s the point of BBC Music?
To Radio 2 to meet Bob Shennan, controller of the BBC’s most popular radio station (the station attracts one third…
